Pittsburgh featured in ‘My First Place’

HGTV camera crews are busy following Pittsburgh area Realtors® and their first-time home buyers.

The crews are filming for the network’s show My First Place, which features first-time buyers as they search for a home.

“The show is a docu-reality show,” said Marybeth Brush, casting director for My First Place. “There’s no narrator or host. The show follows the journey of a first-time buyer through his eyes as he chooses a Realtor®, applies for financing, visits properties and purchases a home. We feature his thoughts about each property and how he ultimately makes the decision.”

This is the tenth season of the show, which films in two different locations per season.  The upcoming season will also feature first-time home buyers in Nashville.

“We wanted to showcase the western part of Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh real estate market is doing so well,” Brush said. “We wanted to show what first-time home buyers would find in Pittsburgh.”

My First Place highlights the buyers’ individual needs, whether they’re single, married, engaged, have children, pets or other unique circumstances.

“Every first-time buyer is different. We try to choose people with a distinctive story to tell so viewers see something new and will be drawn into each episode,” Brush said. “One of the special aspects of Pittsburgh is buyers who wanted to find a home with old-world charm and character.”

The half-hour show likes to have a traditional ending but they don’t all end with the purchase of a house. “Sometimes, for whatever reason, the home buyer isn’t able to make a decision,” she added.

The show received nearly a thousand applicants who wanted to be cast for the show. Brush said 21 home buyers were selected and are being filmed with Realtors® from a variety of real estate companies through the Pittsburgh region. The network will then choose which episodes it will air, beginning later this year or in early 2012. Since the episodes haven’t been slated to run, those cast on the show can’t talk about their episode at this time.

Filming began in April and is expected to run through September.

Related posts:

1. HGTV announces open casting call for Realtors®

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Tags: first-time homebuyer, HGTV, my first place, Pittsburgh, reality

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Association News, Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.